Left-wing Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador reportedly vowed to take on tech companies on Thursday in response to the bans that President Donald Trump has faced on social media.
“I can tell you that at the first G20 meeting we have, I am going to make a proposal on this issue,” López Obrador said. “Yes, social media should not be used to incite violence and all that, but this cannot be used as a pretext to suspend freedom of expression.”
“How can a company act as if it was all powerful, omnipotent, as a sort of Spanish Inquisition on what is expressed?” López Obrador asked.
López Obrador’s Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said that Mexico has already started the work of getting other nations involved in the effort, including “officials in France, Germany, the European Union, Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia,” The Associated Press reported.
“Given that Mexico, through our president, has spoken out, we immediately made contact with others who think the same,” Ebrard said. “The president’s orders are to make contact with all of them, share this concern and work on coming up with a joint proposal. We will see what is proposed.”’
López Obrador condemned the social media companies at the start of the week following their decision to suspend or outright ban the president from using their platforms.
“I don’t like anybody being censored or taking away from the right to post a message on Twitter or Face(book). I don’t agree with that, I don’t accept that,” López Obrador said. “How can you censor someone: ‘Let’s see, I, as the judge of the Holy Inquisition, will punish you because I think what you’re saying is harmful.’ Where is the law, where is the regulation, what are the norms? This is an issue of government, this is not an issue for private companies.”
Other international figures have spoken out against the censorship, including officials in Australia, France, Germany, Russia, and Poland.
This is an excerpt from The Daily Wire.
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